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Scuderia Toro Rosso
Toro Rosso |image = |Full Name = Scuderia Toro Rosso |Base = Faenza, Italy |Founder(s) = Dietrich Mateschitz |Noted Staff = Franz Tost James Key Giorgio Ascanelli |Noted Drivers = Sebastian Vettel Daniel Ricciardo Max Verstappen |Previous Name = Minardi F1 Team |Drivers = 16. Daniel Ricciardo 17. Jean-Éric Vergne |years = - |debut = 2006 Bahrain Grand Prix |Races Competed = 185 |Constructors' Championships = 0 |Drivers' Championships = 0 |wins = 1 |Poles = 1 |Fastest Laps = 0 |Latest race = 2015 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix}}Scuderia Toro Rosso (Italian for Team Red Bull), also known simply as Toro Rosso or by its abbreviation STR, is an Italian Formula One racing team. It is one of two F1 teams owned by Austrian beverage company Red Bull, the other being Red Bull Racing. It made its racing debut in the 2006 Formula One season, after Paul Stoddart sold his remaining interest in the Minardi team at the end of 2005 to Red Bull's owner, Dietrich Mateschitz, who subsequently struck a 50/50 joint-ownership deal with former F1 driver, Gerhard Berger, before the start of the season. In late November 2008, Red Bull regained total ownership of Toro Rosso after buying back Berger's share of the team. Scuderia Toro Rosso is the junior/sister team of Red Bull Racing, with the aim of developing the skills of promising drivers for the senior team. Since , the team has competed as a 'true constructor', independent of their sister team. Vitantonio Liuzzi scored the team's first point in its first season at the 2006 United States Grand Prix. The team's first pole position, podium and victory were scored by Sebastian Vettel at the 2008 Italian Grand Prix. Origins Minardi had competed in Formula One from 1985 to 2005. Despite having a large fan base, they had been one of the least competitive teams in the sport, due to a relatively restricted budget. Owner Paul Stoddart claimed to have had 41 approaches to buy the team, but preferred to sell it to someone who could 'take it further' than he could and who would maintain it in its traditional base in Italy. Included in the terms of the deal with Red Bull was the clause that the team must keep its headquarters in Faenza, Italy until at least the 2007 season. Whilst Red Bull have abandoned the Minardi name in line with their own sponsorship and marketing plans, the use of the Italian language in the name is intended to hint at the team's Italian heritage. Red Bull changed the name of the team immediately after taking control of the team on 1 November 2005. It was initially reported as 'Squadra Toro Rosso' but then changed because 'squadra' in Italian depicts a 'squad' like a football team, to 'Scuderia Toro Rosso'. Many Minardi fans were upset by this move, and over 15,000 signed an online petition to keep the Minardi name, but were unsuccessful. Racing history 2006 Vitantonio Liuzzi and Scott Speed were the 2006 race drivers, with Neel Jani filling the test/third driver role. Liuzzi had raced part time for Red Bull Racing in 2005, while Speed entered F1 following the Red Bull Driver Search in the United States. Jani was the test driver for Sauber Petronas in 2004. The 2006 chassis was a modified version of the 2005 Red Bull Racing RB1. Some teams felt that this infringed the Concorde Agreement as each team is expected to design their own car. Toro Rosso claim that this design was originally produced during 2004 by Jaguar Racing, Red Bull's predecessor, and that the intellectual rights had belonged to the Ford Motor Company, Jaguar Racing's parent company before passing to Toro Rosso. The team used Minardi's contracted supply of rev limited and air restricted Cosworth 3.0l V10 engines. This concession had been granted to assist less well funded teams by avoiding the cost of sourcing a new supply of V8 engines as required by the 2006 regulations. The continuation of this arrangement after the Red Bull takeover caused friction with other teams, in particular Super Aguri and Midland who felt that the engine conferred too much of an advantage. They contended that the concession to allow the team use a V10 engine was based on Minardi's poor financial situation, and should not have continued to apply after the team achieved a completely different financial footing. As the season progressed, the Toro Rossos began to struggle in qualifying as their competitors developed their new V8 engines to rev closer to 20,000 rpm to get more power. To try and balance the playing field Toro Rosso asked for an extra 500 revs for qualifying, however the FIA permitted them 300 revs only. 2007 For the 2007 season, Toro Rosso began using the Ferrari V8 engine, taking over the contract that their senior team broke from by switching to Renault power. At the launch of the STR2 on 13 February, Toro Rosso confirmed Liuzzi as a 2007 driver. In testing in Bahrain on 24 February, Scott Speed was confirmed as the team's second driver. Three-time Champ Car champion Sébastien Bourdais was an occasional test driver several times during the season. The team appointed new technical director Giorgio Ascanelli to replace temporary stand-in Alex Hitzinger on 2 April. The 2007 season was generally disappointing, with poor reliability and driver errors leading to a low finishing record. Following the European Grand Prix, Speed was dropped under controversial circumstances and was replaced by BMW Sauber development driver Sebastian Vettel who was later confirmed for . At the Chinese Grand Prix the Toro Rosso scored their best results, with Vettel finishing fourth and Vitantonio Liuzzi sixth, scoring eight points for the team. These were also the drivers' best finishes in Formula One. It was a marked improvement over the preceding Japanese Grand Prix, where Vettel crashed into Mark Webber's Red Bull under safety car conditions while they were running second and third respectively, and Liuzzi lost a potential point after a 25-second penalty for overtaking Adrian Sutil's Spyker for eighth under waved yellow flags dropped him to ninth. With the 2008 Concorde Agreement outlawing customer cars from onwards, Dietrich Mateschitz put the Toro Rosso team up for sale in March 2008. He aimed to secure a buyer by the end of , while the team continued in its present guise until then. 2008 Scuderia Toro Rosso's drivers for 2008 were Sebastian Vettel and Sébastien Bourdais. Bourdais earned his first points in F1 with a 7th place finish at the Australian Grand Prix. Vettel scored his first points of the season with a 5th place finish at the Monaco Grand Prix. The team showed steady improvement throughout the season, leading up to a solid performance at the Belgian Grand Prix which saw both cars running in the top six for most of the race, and with Bourdais and Vettel running 3rd and 4th respectively on the final lap until cars on tyres better suited to the extreme wet conditions passed them, demoting Vettel to 5th and Bourdais to 7th. The double points finish moved STR above Honda and level with Williams in the Constructor's Championship. The team pulled off a massive shock at the wet Italian Grand Prix, with Vettel claiming a first pole position and the first win for himself and the team. This was the first win by a team based in Italy other than Ferrari since the 1957 German Grand Prix, which was won by Juan Manuel Fangio in a Maserati and also the first win for a Ferrari engine in a customer chassis. Vettel beat second-place Heikki Kovalainen by 12 seconds. Vettel was at it again in the next race, the Singapore Grand Prix, Formula One's first ever night race. Vettel qualified 7th and finished the race in 5th, while Bourdais could only manage 12th. At the next race in Japan Vettel again showed his class finishing 6th. Bourdais, meanwhile, was doing well, until Felipe Massa, who had been running in 8th tried to overtake Bourdais. Massa had climbed up to 8th place after having dropped down to 13th as a result of his drive-through and his first pit-stop. Just after Bourdais left the pitlane after making his final stop, Massa attempted to pass him and the two cars collided at the first corner. Massa spun, but rejoined the track and eventually finished 8th. Bourdais finished the race in 6th place, but had 25 seconds added to his overall time as penalty for the incident, dropping him down to 10th place. This ultimately had the effect of promoting Massa to 7th place, and giving him an extra championship point. It was a controversial penalty, and Bourdais was adamant that he was not to blame. Vettel's performances earned him a place at the senior Red Bull team for 2009. However, his final drive for Toro Rosso saw him almost play a crucial role in the world championship decider in Brazil. In mixed conditions, Lewis Hamilton needed 5th place to clinch the championship, and was running in this position when he was overtaken by Vettel with two laps remaining. Unable to keep up, Hamilton dropped back, and only took the title when he and Vettel both overtook Timo Glock on the final lap. 2009 With Vettel moving to Red Bull Racing replacing the retired David Coulthard, Sébastien Buemi and Sébastien Bourdais led the team's assault in the 2009 World Championship. The team unveiled their new car last of all the teams taking part in the 2009 season, on 9 March 2009. Before the season started, the team's boss Franz Tost said that it would be "difficult" to do as well as they did in the season. Buemi scored a 7th place on his debut race at the 2009 Australian Grand Prix. On 16 July 2009, the team announced that Bourdais' contract was to be terminated with immediate effect due to disappointing results. On 20 July 2009, the team announced that Jaime Alguersuari would replace him as official driver for the rest of the season. Alguersuari failed to score any points during the season, managing to finish only 3 races out of the 8 he raced in. Toro Rosso's form picked up towards the end of the season with Buemi scoring points in the final two races, however the season ended with the team finishing in tenth and last place in the championship after being overtaken by Force India after their podium finish in Belgium. Jaime Alguersuari 2009 Italy.jpg|Alguersuari at the 2009 Italian GP 2010 Scuderia Toro Rosso confirmed that they would keep Sébastien Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari for the 2010 season, in the hope of achieving better results. Alguersuari scored the first points of his career by finishing ninth under the new points system at the . He finished tenth in Spain scoring a point thanks to Lewis Hamilton's penultimate lap crash. He also received a drive-through penalty in that race. At the next race in Monaco Buemi finished 11th and Alguersuari 12th, the last two runners at the end of the race. However, when Michael Schumacher received a 20-second penalty for a last turn overtake against Fernando Alonso, Buemi was moved up to tenth, scoring a point. Buemi spain 2010.jpg|Buemi at the 2010 Spanish GP 2011 Sébastien Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari have been confirmed as drivers of the team's STR6 for 2011, Daniel Ricciardo will be the team's reserve and test driver, and will also take part in free practice at each of the Grands Prix. The STR6 was launched on 1 February in Valencia, Spain. At the beginning of the season in Australia, Buemi finished eighth and collected four championship points. The saw no points while China saw both cars in the Top 10 for qualifying, Alguersuari in seventh and Buemi in tenth. However Alguersuari turned out to be the race's only retirement and Buemi finished way down the field. Turkey saw Buemi finishing ninth while Spain was another bad race for the team with Alguersuari again failing to score. Monaco saw Buemi in the points in tenth, ahead of Nico Rosberg whilst Alguersuari crashed out along with Vitaly Petrov in an incident that brought out the red flag to the race. In Canada, Alguersuari finished eighth, helped out by the retirements of Adrian Sutil, Nick Heidfeld and Paul di Resta. Buemi also finished in tenth for the team's first double score since the 2009 Australian Grand Prix when Buemi was seventh ahead of Sébastien Bourdais. In the , Alguersuari scored a point with a tenth place finish while Buemi collided with di Resta, which forced his retirement from the race. Neither driver finished in the points in Germany, but both drivers picked up points in Hungary; Buemi came from 23rd on the grid to finish eighth while Alguersuari added another point to his tally with tenth place. At the , Alguersuari qualified sixth, but retired on the first lap after contact with Bruno Senna. Buemi also retired after contact with Sergio Pérez. Both drivers picked up points at Monza, with Alguersuari a career-best seventh and Buemi tenth. In Singapore, Buemi finished 12th and Alguersuari was classified 21st after crashing in the closing stages. At the , Alguersuari finished in fifteenth position, while Buemi retired with a loose tyre. The saw the team qualify in eleventh and thirteenth places. Due to their car's high straight-line speed, Buemi picked up points with ninth, while Alguersuari overtook Rosberg's Mercedes on the final lap to take the team's best race result in 2011, of seventh place. Alguersuari added an eighth place in India, while Buemi retired. In Abu Dhabi, Alguersuari again finished down in fifteenth; meanwhile Buemi had his third retirement in four races. Both drivers finished outside the points at the season-ending in eleventh and twelfth places. 2012 On 14 December 2011, it was announced that Daniel Ricciardo and Jean-Éric Vergne would drive for the team in 2012, replacing Sébastien Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari. Team principal Franz Tost later stated that the team had the make-up of a "rookie training school", with the prospect of bringing new talent to the team. After scoring points in the opening two rounds, Toro Rosso could not manage to maintain that pace and failed to finish in the points again until the 12th race of the season, the Belgian Grand Prix. Upgrades to the STR7 helped the drivers to secure consistent points scoring finishes from then to the end of the season. Despite not scoring points as frequently as Ricciardo, Vergne finished ahead of him in the Drivers' Championship. Overall Toro Rosso suffered a poor season which saw the team finish in ninth place in the Constructors' Championship, only ahead of Caterham, Marussia and HRT. 2012-Singapore-Grand-Prix-photos-13.jpg|Vergne is hit from behind by Schumacher at the 2012 Singapore GP 2013 2014 2015 Complete Formula One results (key) (results in bold indicate pole position) *† – The driver did not finish the Grand Prix, but was classified as they completed over 90% of the race distance. Category:Formula One Constructors Category:Italian Teams Category:Teams